Two people were killed and 16 others injured by an explosion at a gas pipeline near Iran's northeastern city of Mashhad on Friday, local media reported.Mehr news agency, without quoting a source, reported that two workers were killed in the explosion.The website of state television said the explosion took place in the Mazdavand region near Mashhad when a mechanical shovel struck the pipeline.It quoted Alireza Gharibi, head of Iran's Gas Engineering and Development Company, as saying that the blast also left 16 others injured.

Ten days ago, we reported that as a result of Obama's vow to extend the Iran Sanctions Act for another 10 years, Iran threatened to retaliate, saying it violated last year's deal with six major powers that curbed its nuclear program.

Suicide bombers and gunmen struck at the heart of Iran’s political and religious establishment on Wednesday in simultaneous attacks, killing 12 and wounding 42, according to an an Iranian media.
The state-run news website, Mizan Online, is affiliated with the judiciary and attributed the toll from Wednesday’s attacks to Pirhossein Kolivand, the head of Iran’s emergency department.

TEHRAN, Iran — A 6.1 magnitude earthquake killed at least 37 and injured hundreds more in a sparsely populated area in southern Iran on Tuesday, Iranian officials said, adding that it did not damage a nuclear plant in the region.
The report said the earthquake struck the town of Kaki some 96 kilometres southeast of Bushehr, a town on the Persian Gulf that is home of Iran’s first nuclear power plant, built with Russian help.

The G-8 may be no more as the G-7 throws every possible case of harsh language known to man at the Kremlin, which obstinately refuses to back down, while re-escalating sanctions against a Russia which merely has done what the US does every single time its national interest abroad is threatened, but one thing is becoming ever clearer: while the west isolates Russia with ever stricter measures, Russia has decided to make some new friends. Such as China: